Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass has not gotten any holiday cheer from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with two of his petitions challenging pharmaceutical patents denied this month. The Board has now ruled on 16 of his inter partes review petitions

December has not been kind to hedge fund manager Kyle Bass’s efforts to invalidate pharmaceutical patents through Patent Trial and Appeal Board proceedings.

The Board this month has denied institution of two of his inter partes review petitions. Its decisions on December 8 and 17 both involved patents covering Pozen’s Vimovo arthritis pain treatment, which is marketed in the US by Horizon Pharma.

For those keeping score, the PTAB has now given an institution decision in 16 of the 33 petitions filed by the Coalition for Affordable Drugs, the coalition set up by Bass and Erich Spangenberg to attack pharma patents.

This means the board has now given an institution decision on almost half of the Coalition for Affordable Drugs petitions (see table below).

Bass’s success rate for institution now stands at 44%, with the PTAB instituting trial for seven IPRs and denying nine. This is down from the heady days of October, when Bass could boast a 54% rate of success after the Board had instituted seven of the 13 petitions it had decided up until then.

The Board has denied three petitions in a row since then.

Bass will be hoping to break this losing streak next month when the Board is likely to give more decisions, including on two more IPRs challenging the Vimovo treatment.

The PTAB has given decisions on all of Bass’s petitions filed until the end of June. Next up it must decide on the 12 petitions the Coalition filed in August and the five petitions filed in September.

Interestingly, Bass and Spangenberg in November also filed two petitions with just their two names listed, and no Coalition for Affordable Drugs. These petitions challenged patents owned by Alpex Pharma and Fresenius.